


And Eat it Too

by Scruggzi



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Drunk Sex, F/M, Jack in his birthday suit, Misadventures in cake mix, Not Canon Compliant - Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears, Phryne cheering up wistful Jack, Phryne's cooking shenanigans, With booze and sex and snacking, blow jobs gone awry, comedy smut, so much giggling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:14:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28075290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scruggzi/pseuds/Scruggzi
Summary: Jack has gotten used to spending his birthdays alone, but that was before he started stepping out with a lady detective...
Relationships: Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson
Comments: 26
Kudos: 94





	And Eat it Too

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Allison_Wonderland and glamorouspixels for the Beta - and you can thank AW for the excellent title as well. Gotta love a pun!

As soon as he heard the tell-tale knock on the door, Jack realised how foolish it had been to imagine he could keep the significance of the date from Miss Fisher. She was a detective, after all. His face remained entirely impassive as he set down his glass and marked his place in the book he’d been reading before rising to answer the summons.

“Happy birthday, Jack! I hope you didn’t think you were going to get away with keeping it a secret?” Phryne grinned at him from his front step, proving him right.

Her eyes raked his body, appreciating the sight of him in shirtsleeves and slippers. A smile twitched in the corner of his mouth when he noticed her gaze linger at his open collar, where the hollow of his neck was exposed to the balmy night air. She had seen a lot more of him than that since her return from London, but her continued appreciation for such small details was extremely gratifying.

“I long ago gave up keeping anything a secret around you. Won’t you come in?”

Hugh must have told her, although Jack couldn’t recall actually mentioning the significance of the date to his constable at any point. He rarely did anything in particular to mark the day, although he usually preferred to spend it alone if he could manage it. Tonight, he had treated himself to a decent bottle of scotch and had been intending to curl up in his favourite armchair with a good book until he fell asleep. He did not expect sleep to come early or easily. It had been a long time since his birthday had been a happy occasion for him.

“Don’t you want to know how I found out?” Phryne asked with an irresistible, teasing smile that had brought lesser men to their knees. As he no longer had any reason to resist her, Jack didn’t bother to try, pulling her into a passionate embrace before the door had closed.

“I assume you bribed my constables with feminine wiles and Mr Butler’s confectionary?” he asked once they had surfaced and Phryne had removed the smudges of lipstick from his face with a lace handkerchief.

He suspected there was more to it than that; Phryne was looking more than usually pleased with herself and was rather curious to learn the details. They reached the living room and Phryne placed the picnic basket on a side table and extracted two tall glasses and a bottle of champagne with a flourish, before perching herself delicately on the edge of the sofa

“If you’d managed to keep me in the dark all this time, I can’t imagine your constables would be privy to the knowledge. No, I had a much more reliable source.”

Jack raised his eyebrows in question, curious.

“Aunt Prudence.”

“How on Earth does your Aunt Prudence know when my birthday is?”

“She didn’t, not off the top of her head. She asked me to help her organise some old files cataloguing donations to the Hospital Board…”

She opened the bottle with practiced ease and a loud bang, filling their glasses without spilling a drop.

“I assume Mrs Collins was invaluable in that endeavour.” Jack interrupted, earning him a chastising glare and a glass of champagne.

“If I didn’t know her better, I would assume Aunt P was secretly involved in some kind of nefarious plot, or possibly international espionage. I swear, there were files on every society name in Australia and half the continent besides.”

“And these included me?” Jack asked, confused. He was by no stretch of the imagination a ‘society name’.

“No, but they were old files as I said, and they did include the Sandersons.” Her voice rose slightly, as if she had hoped to get through the story without the implied mention of Jack’s former in-laws, not a subject they tended to bring up in casual conversation.

“Ah,” Jack nodded, a little nonplussed, although he had to admire her cleverness.

He did not especially want to be reminded of Rosie this evening. The cheerful dinners with friends she had organised every year had always made him feel an utter cad for craving nothing more than a quiet drink and his own company. He’d been so relieved when she’d given up the tradition, he’d never stopped to think about what it meant to her.

Phryne saw the clench of his jaw and ploughed on, refusing to allow him to put any distance between them.

“Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the ‘quiet night in’ you brushed me off for, was nothing but a ruse. I half expected to find the house full of drunken revels and debauchery.”

He couldn’t help a wry smile at that; perhaps next year, he could introduce her to a few of his old army mates, see how many of them she could drink under the table.

“Phryne, you may rest assured that if I ever feel the need to fill my evening with either drunken revels or debauchery, I will be sure to avail myself of your expertise.”

He toasted her solemnly and took a sip of champagne, which was delicious. Phryne, however, was not about to let him derail the conversation, and it occurred to him with a slight jolt of surprise that despite her customary flippancy and flirtation, she actually appeared worried about him.

“So instead you’re drinking alone in an empty house?”

“That makes it sound rather worse than it is.”

She looked at him with gentle, curious eyes, working that peculiar sympathetic magic that always seemed to have the power to coax him out of his shell.

“I don’t usually feel much like celebrating,” he admitted, watching the bubbles rise to the top of his glass and burst into nothingness as they reached the surface. “My brother Daniel…”

“He died during the war?” Phryne remembered Jack mentioning him once or twice, although he rarely spoke of his family. Jack nodded and the penny dropped.

“On your birthday?” That was rotten luck, and she could certainly relate.

“Even after I came home, it was a hard day, for my mother especially. I didn’t like to draw attention to it. Rosie tried, but...”

Phryne nodded in dawning understanding. She could well imagine Jack forcing enthusiasm for a party he’d never wanted, but didn’t have the heart to refuse. Honestly, she loved the man dearly - and had almost built up the courage to tell him so - but his nobility could at times edge perilously close to martyrdom.

She sipped her champagne in what she hoped was a sympathetic manner whilst pondering her response. Her own methods for dealing with the anniversary of Janey’s abduction had tended to involve raucous parties of questionable legality, hardly Jack’s cup of tea even when he was in a good mood. In truth, she was a little hurt that he hadn’t thought to call on her. Their romantic relationship might only be a recent development, but they had been friends far longer. Even if they hadn’t made it as far as the bedroom yet, she wouldn’t have wanted him spending the day alone.

Jack was rapidly coming to the same conclusion. He had considered telephoning and asking her to join him but had dismissed the idea. He was hardly likely to be an entertaining companion and hadn’t wanted to invite her over only to be dull company. It had been barely a week since Phryne had returned from London, and the experience had been rather similar to taking a ride in Miss Fisher’s motorcar; dangerous, exhilarating and with no time to stop and think. Asking her to be with him tonight would be something else entirely, something far more intimate than the nights they had shared in her bed. It had felt too soon to ask it of her, so he had retreated to the safety of his solitude, and for that, he owed her an apology.

“I’m sorry, Phryne. I should have told you.” He gave her a sad little smile that she couldn’t resist kissing lightly, whether to comfort him or herself, she wasn’t sure. “I still forget sometimes that I have someone to tell.”

“Well, allow me to jog your memory, Inspector.”

She set their glasses down next to the bottle on the table and kissed him properly, slow and deep, reaching out a metaphorical hand as her warm, living fingers tangled in his hair. She was rather better at physical communication when it came to matters of the heart.

“I hope you know I appreciate you for more than just your good looks, Jack.”

“Well, yes, there’s also my unrivalled access to crime scenes.”

She tilted her head in gracious acknowledgement of his usefulness as a police source before raising a hand to his face, softly stroking the tight little lines that loss had left there.

“I do know a little about what it’s like to lose someone close to you.”

Jack was thrown back for a second to the moment when, kneeling by her sister’s unmarked grave, he had seen Phryne break. He had held out a hand and she had grasped it like a lifeline. He nodded, unsure now why he had ever doubted his inclination to lean on her when she, of all people, would be most likely to understand.

“Stay? Help me to celebrate?”

She had asked the same thing of him once, long ago, and as was so often the case between them, there was no need for further conversation. No need for either of them to point out that Jack’s brother, like Janey, was buried in some anonymous spot far from those who had cared about him. No need to say that it was not their fault for surviving, or that the weight of their guilt could never be entirely set down.

She took his hand between her two smaller ones and brushed a kiss against his knuckles, the simple action containing all those things they already knew and didn’t need to say, and Jack squeezed her hands back, his heart full of gratitude for this woman who knew him so well.

Satisfied that they had exhausted Jack’s need for introspection, Phryne flashed him a salacious grin and promptly shifted over to sit on his lap. As birthday presents went, an armful of silk-clad lady detective was easily the best he had ever received.

“I’d be delighted to increase the supply of drunken revels,” she smiled, treating herself to another kiss since her position made it both easy and tempting, “and debauchery too if you play your cards right.”.

“I’ll do my best, Miss Fisher,” he murmured against her lips, thinking as he did so that even fully clothed this was already the best birthday he had had in years.

The champagne slipped down far too easily, along with a varied selection of tasty treats that she had hastily purloined from the Wardlow pantry. The lack of Mr Butler’s usual presentation skills made Jack suspect she had packed the basket herself, hurrying to his side as soon as she had realised that she was somehow missing his birthday. He was trying not to appear too sentimental about it, but in truth, he was rather touched. It had been a long time since someone had done something so thoughtful for him.

They had been apart a long time whilst Phryne flew her father home, and the week since her return had included the kidnapping of a high-ranking politician and more sex than Jack had had in the last decade. All in all, it had been something of a whirlwind – albeit a very satisfying one – and not just because they managed to find Mr Hogan alive and well.

Jack had not been lying when he had told her he needed a quiet night after all the excitement, and it was wonderful to realise that despite her ever-present propensity for finding trouble, Phryne was not averse to simply relaxing for an evening and enjoying the pleasure of each other’s company.

They had never lacked for topics of conversation, but to Jack’s surprise, he found himself talking about his brother, remembering happier times they had spent together as children. She particularly enjoyed the tale of how they had nearly gotten themselves arrested over an incident with a bucket of whitewash and a prized bulldog that had belonged to a particularly bad-tempered neighbour. She, in turn, told him about Janey, and how the Fisher girls had almost killed themselves in Port Philip Bay, after stealing a rowboat and attempting to emigrate to Jamaica.

“We were rescued by some fishermen who had not expected the catch of the day to include a pair of adolescent runaways. I tried to convince the captain to take us on as deckhands, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Said women at sea were unlucky – not that we could really be counted as women at that point.”

“How old were you?”

“Around eleven or twelve, I think, and whilst I wouldn’t have called myself innocent, I can’t say I picked up on all his reasons for keeping young girls off his boat.”

“Probably afraid you’d stage a mutiny and commandeer it.”

After they finished the champagne, they moved on to Jack’s scotch, each trying to scandalise the other with more and more outrageous stories, some new, some they had told before, but deemed good enough to share again.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve enjoyed my birthday this much since before the war?” Jack told her after a while, taking a little extra care with his diction lest the whisky trip him up. It seemed important to him to let her know how happy her presence in his life had made him.

Phryne, who was feeling more giddy than could rightly be accounted for by the alcohol, felt herself blushing, something she was fairly sure she hadn’t done since before the war either. A little abashed by her response, she took refuge in flirtation.

“But Jack, you still have a gift to unwrap.”

His eyes darkened as his fingers slipped under the sparkling overlay of her dress to stroke where her satin slip met her skin. He tilted his head, his smile broader and sloppier than it was when sober.

“No time like the present.”

Her groan at his terrible punning was replaced by a much happier noise as he pulled her dress and slip over her head, leaving her in nothing but silk tap pants, stockings, and a dab of French perfume. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, holding her close so he could breathe her in and reflect for a moment on how lucky he was to have been the one to interrupt her snooping around a murder scene with a curiosity for crime.

Feeling the shift in his mood, Phryne slid her arms around his head, closing her eyes, and pressing a kiss to his forehead. The honey-sweet smell of beeswax from his pomade filled her lungs and mingled with the inky musk and whisky scent that had come to mean home long before they became lovers.

Struck by a sudden thought, her eyes snapped open. “Jack! We should make you a birthday cake!”

“Now?” he asked in confusion and not a small amount of disappointment.

“As you said, no time like the present!”

She swung herself off of him and the sofa with barely a wobble, considered putting her dress back on, then decided she would rather not risk getting it dirty. Not having anything else to wear, she strode into Jack’s kitchen in nothing but stockings and tap pants, enjoying the feel of the night air against her bare skin.

“Phryne, do you even know how to make a birthday cake?”

Jack was pinching his nose in exasperation, valiantly ignoring the erection only partially obscured by his well-tailored trousers, and smiled to himself. It was just like old times, except now he was reasonably confident he would not end the night alone, clutching his integrity like a talisman in the futile hope it could protect him from the lure of Phryne Fisher. Thank God it hadn’t worked.

She threw him a dazzling smile over her shoulder; it was an incendiary look at the best of times, but with her half-naked - in his kitchen of all places - it was a miracle he didn’t combust on the spot.

“But of course.”

Even moderately drunk, and with Phryne’s breasts unbound and tantalisingly close, he couldn’t miss the telling cadence and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Well, I’ve watched Dot do it a hundred times. How hard can it be?” she responded, unabashed.

Deciding that the best way to avoid burning his kitchen down was to pitch in and help, Jack fetched the battered copy of Good Housekeeping that had once been his mother’s pride and joy. Scanning the index for something they could manage, he came across a recipe for a chocolate sponge that looked straightforward enough and also conjured up a mixing bowl, butter, eggs, sugar, flour, and, to his surprise, baking powder from the kitchen cupboard. Cocoa powder was stashed next to the tea by the stove, although he rarely drank the stuff unless he was feeling particularly sorry for himself.

Phryne, meanwhile, had managed to locate another bottle of wine which Jack couldn’t remember buying, and had begun swigging from the bottle without care.

“Is the kitchen another area in which you have hidden skills, Inspector?” Asked Phryne, who was more than happy to allow Jack the privilege of making his own birthday cake now he had apparently volunteered.

“I thought you were offering to demonstrate your unexpected domestic talents?”

Unwilling to admit defeat, even when it came to disciplines she had no interest in mastering, Phryne skimmed down the list of instructions in the book, the words blurred together a little, but she was fairly sure she understood the gist and would be able to bluff her way through the rest.

It went fairly well for the first few minutes. She managed to get a batter that was mostly free of lumps and smelled good enough to eat, then entertaining herself immensely by licking it off the end of her finger with a hum of appreciation. Jack’s face as she did so, was such a picture of want that she half expected him to throw caution to the wind and take her right there on the kitchen table. Not that she would have objected. Instead, he leaned in very close, his eyes on her lips, before diverting at the last moment to scoop a mouthful up to sample it for himself.

The man was a damnable tease.

“Mmmm, not bad.” He acknowledged, proffering a finger covered in the chocolatey mixture, groaning deep in his throat when Phryne sucked it into her mouth.

At which point, things started to get messy... 

More than a little compromised by the feel of Phryne’s hot, wet mouth on his finger, Jack reached out with his other hand to steady himself against the table – and knocked the remaining eggs onto the floor. Cursing, he looked around for something to clean it up with and began to move towards the sink just as Phryne slid off the table to offer assistance. Unfortunately, the combination of raw egg and silk stockings proved more than her drunken equilibrium could manage and she fell heavily into him. Both of them lost their balance and Jack’s last, desperate attempt to remain upright went wildly awry. His flailing arm caught the mixing bowl, which hit the linoleum with a thud, and the two detectives found themselves in a sticky heap on the kitchen floor, covered head to toe in cake batter.

Phryne gave an unladylike cackle of laughter, which, once started, didn’t seem to want to stop. Jack had removed a few layers since returning from the station, but his shirt and trousers were quite possibly beyond repair. His shocked face, smattered with the thick chocolate batter put her in mind of a naughty schoolboy, caught playing mud pies behind the schoolhouse. Her expensive lingerie was also likely ruined, but there was nothing that could be done about that now and at least the rest of her would clean up easily enough.

One of the first things which Jack had learned through his association with Phryne Fisher, apart from the wisdom of keeping his bathroom cupboard liberally stocked with aspirin, was that the joy she found in even the darkest situation was incurably contagious. His laugh, when it bubbled up, was the kind of wild, uncontrollable mirth that shook his whole body and softened his face, as if the young man who had still celebrated his birthday with cake and candles was peering out from behind his eyes.

The pair of them sat in a sloppy heap on his kitchen floor, him almost fully dressed, Phryne naked apart from her ruined knickers, holding each other for support as happy tears washed smatters of chocolate from their cheeks. Laughter. It was the best and least expected birthday present he could ever have imagined and he would have told her so, but whenever either of them attempted speech or even looked for too long at the other’s chocolate spattered face, the giggles would bubble up again and they would be right back where they’d started.

“I fear we may have to admit defeat on the baking front, Jack,” Phryne tittered when she was finally able to construct a complete sentence.

“That’s not like you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you give up on anything.”

“It’s possible that the domestic arts are outside of my repertoire,” she admitted, in a rare display of humility she would doubtless deny if questioned later.

“I don’t know.” Jack tilted his head in momentary scrutiny before leaning forward swiftly and licking the batter off of her exposed nipple with a deft swirl of his tongue. “Tastes alright to me.” 

Phryne giggled in delight and arched her back to encourage him to keep going. He’d intended it as a joke, but Jack found chocolate cake mix to be unexpectedly appetising when served on a naked Phryne Fisher, especially as she responded by digging encouraging, if somewhat sticky, fingers into his hair and pushing his head down lower. He’d always been a man with a healthy appetite, so he took care to ensure that both of her breasts were thoroughly clean before following the smears and splatters of culinary misadventure down to the chocolate-saturated silk of her underwear.

If she hadn’t been so tipsy, Phryne might have suggested a move to a more comfortable location – or at least out of the chocolatey mess that was matting the back of her hair together – but the intoxicating combination of alcohol and Jack’s busy tongue kept her squirming helplessly on the kitchen floor. The wicked little smile on his face as he met her eyes, pointedly holding her gaze as he tugged her knickers down with his teeth, sent a jolt of arousal through her, powerful enough to cause her hips to jerk violently off the floor and smack him squarely in the nose.

“Ouch!”

“Oh, Jack, I’m sorry, are you all right?”

“Miss Fisher, that was very close to assaulting a police officer, the penalty for which is _quite_ severe.”

Satisfied that he was not actually hurt, Phryne responded to this pronouncement with unabashed glee.

“Will you have to arrest me, Inspector?”

“Perhaps, if you ask nicely. But first, I intend to finish off my birthday cake.”

Phryne’s more delicate parts had in fact been largely protected from flying cake mix thanks to the brave sacrifice of her expensive French lingerie, but enough of the flavour remained coating Jack’s palette to let him appreciate the exquisite mix of salt and sweet against his tongue. It was possible he’d never be able to eat chocolate in public again, but under the circumstances, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. Phryne squirmed and moaned with every thrust of his tongue, every movement of her hips and slide of his hands leaving sweet, sticky marks on her hips and thighs – each one a delicious and distracting prospect.

If Jack had been looking for a way to punish her for the injury to his nose, he could hardly have found a better one. The relentless rhythm of his lips and tongue against her soft, sensitive flesh had her climbing inexorably towards climax, her limbs shaking, flailing hands smearing their culinary disaster further across the once-pristine tiles of the kitchen floor and the ruined fabric of his previously respectable blue wool suit. Then, just as she was about to crest the peak, he would shift his attention, licking the insides of her thighs, her hips, the gentle curve of her belly. It was a maddening, exquisite torture, and one day soon, she was determined she would get her revenge, but right now he had her, desperate and helpless and hungry for release.

“Jack, please… _please!_ ”

He had not exactly intended to tease, at least not much, although he couldn’t say he was sorry to have reduced his lover to a whimpering sticky mess on his kitchen floor. He relented without reluctance. The cake-saturated wool of his suit trousers was becoming uncomfortable in more ways than one, and he was rather looking forward to getting out of them and unrepentantly fucking Phryne Fisher up against a wall. A plan which, he suspected, she would very vocally support.

She came against his mouth with a scream that might have gotten the police called if Jack had lived in a more salubrious neighbourhood, one hand supplementing his pomade with chocolate, the other sliding in the mess on the floor. Panting and giggling in the aftermath of her climax, she pulled him up to kiss her arousal off his lips, the sweetness of the chocolate adding a delightful piquancy to their mingled flavours. After a few moments, he drew back grinning so they could sit up with their backs against the Welsh dresser, an antique relic from Jack’s grandmother, a deeply respectable woman, who would have been horrified at the scene it had just witnessed, not to mention the mess.

“I don’t think I ever expected to add cookery to your apparently endless list of skills, Miss Fisher, but I can honestly say that was the best birthday cake I’ve ever had,” he glanced down, chagrined at the sorry state of his suit, “even if I look like I’ve just been dragged out of the Yarra.”

Phryne’s lingerie was in a sticky little pile under the table, an unambiguous lost cause, and the floor was getting increasingly chilly.

“Perhaps we should get ourselves cleaned up a little before bed,” she suggested, her fingers toying suggestively with the straining buttons of his trousers.

He caught her hand before she could distract him too much, and she retaliated by pointedly sucking cake mix off of his finger again, then rising unsteadily to her feet. No one with that much raw egg in their hair should be able to sashay suggestively through a doorway, but Phryne Fisher was a law unto herself, as Jack knew all too well. He followed the sound of splashing, slipping a little in the mess on the floor and leaving a trail of sticky footprints all the way up the hall.

The bathroom was another modern addition Jack had made to the house; in addition to the indoor lavatory, it contained a large ceramic tub with a brass shower attachment fashioned like a telephone receiver. It had hot water too, the aborted attempt at cooking had easily heated enough for two and Phryne had lost no time in turning on the spray and helping herself to his soap. By the time Jack had stripped out of the sorry remains of his suit, she was entirely free of chocolate and already planning new ways to cause him grief.

She lounged regally in the warm shallow water, smirking up at him and biding her time as he cleaned himself up and rinsed the last of the cake mix out of his hair. At a motion from her, he passed the showerhead down, and she set it between her knees so the water fountained up between her legs and kept her eyes on his as she rose up to take him in her mouth. He was still feeling light-headed from the drink and was forced to grip the sides of the tub with whitening knuckles and lean his weight against the wall to stop himself falling over. Phryne Fisher had a mouth that could make a saint curse blue, and Jack hadn’t been a god-fearing man to begin with.

“ _Fuck_ , Phryne…”

Phryne smirked in satisfaction around his cock. There was something utterly, indescribably delicious about bringing out the hidden hedonist in her normally stoical inspector. He tasted clean, with just the faintest hint of chocolate, although how it had ended up down there was a mystery she felt no need to solve, not when she could be diligently hunting down every last trace of it with her tongue. Her hands groped his thighs and stroked the shaking tendons in his fingers where he was gripping for dear life to the side of the tub. The warm spray between her legs was a soft caress, a delightful counterpoint to the solid weight of Jack’s cock against her tongue.

Jack had intended to wash up quickly and take Phryne to bed. The sight of her pale skin peppered with little drops and falling of water was beyond mesmerising, but the bath was a little slippery, and rather too small for what he’d had planned. By this point, though, he had resigned himself to the knowledge that even the best laid plans tended to take one look at Phryne and decide it wasn’t worth the trouble. Red coils of deep, soul-shattering pleasure were snaking up from where she crouched between his thighs and spreading up through his belly and down his legs. She blinked in amusement, possibly at the faces he was making, which he was sure were less than dignified, and started to gently massage his balls as she sped up the movement of her mouth, taking him harder and deeper and…

…and that was when, for the second time that evening, alcohol and gravity conspired against them.

Jack, whose body was no longer taking instructions from his brain, brought one of the hands, which had been taking his weight, round to tangle in Phryne’s hair, and his foot slipped on the wet ceramic, causing him to lurch wildly to the left as he caught his balance. It was mostly down to luck that this did not result in a serious injury to either party, but Phryne managed to move her head in tandem, although the slight scrape of her teeth as she did so was somewhat less than erotic. Her shout of surprise morphed into a curse as their sudden shift in position released a jet of water from the showerhead between her legs which hit her full in the face.

It is very difficult to swear properly with a cock in your mouth, and even for Phryne Fisher, it proved impossible to do so with dignity.

“oOOO hhhuuck!”

Jack was a chivalrous man by nature, but even he had limits; he burst out laughing. Phryne removed her mouth from his person with as much delicacy as she could muster, glowered at him for a second, then sprayed him in the crotch with the showerhead. The water had cooled significantly since they had first got into the tub, and the contrast between the heat of her mouth and the tepid spray was enough to make him squeal and slide down into the bath with a clang. They were both crying with laughter again, the salt tears mingling with the rapidly cooling water. Phryne managed to get Jack in the face before he wrested the showerhead from her, drenching the bathroom floor in the process, and kissing her thoroughly for her cheek.

Phryne shut off the water and managed to extract herself from the bath on the second attempt. She wasn’t entirely sure whether the initial slide back into Jack’s arms was intentional or not, but she was getting chilly and allowed herself to get only briefly distracted by his lips on her neck. She held out a towel towards him and he took it gently, wrapping it around her before taking another for himself. One large, gentle hand caressed her shoulder through the damp fabric as the other brushed the wet hair from her face.

“You’re cold,” he whispered.

“A little, although I can think of a few ways to remedy the situation.”

“Lead the way, Miss Fisher.”

They reached the bedroom without any further mishap, sliding under the covers to warm each other up. Jack had plans for something more debauched, but somehow, they never managed to stop touching long enough for him to follow through on them. The warmth of Phryne’s lips on his, the slide of her body around him, her hot breath in his ear as she called his name; it all merged into a confusion of sensations, of love and laughter and letting go. Letting go of too many years, too many ghosts and too many nights spent drinking alone in the dark. He whispered his love for her into the still-damp skin on her neck, and she returned it, marvelling at how easy it was to finally say it aloud, and loved every part of him until he was shaking with ecstasy in her arms and the harsh edges of the world had melted into pleasure.

They finally curled around each other, utterly spent and full of a sleepy, contented joy, all the deeper for the knowledge that Jack’s next shift was not for another two days, and if they wished, they could spend both of them in bed.

“Happy birthday, Jack,” Phryne murmured sleepily, kissing the tips of his fingers where his hand was splayed casually across her chest.

He smiled into her skin, realising as she said it that for the first time since he could remember, it was indeed a happy birthday. He hoped that one day he could find a way to show her how much that meant to him, but for now, there was nothing he could do but hold her close and trust that she understood. She was a detective, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> The reference to the attempt at cooking heating up their bath water is based on an old Aga range a friend of my mum's had. You burned wood in it to cook and heat the water at the same time. It's probably a bit archaic for the era and would have taken longer than I really gave them but I quite like the idea of Jack's house smelling of wood-smoke and whiskey.


End file.
